There is some chance that BIP148 will result in an economic split of the Bitcoin currency at midnight UTC on Aug 1. If this split is non-negligible, then action may be required by all Bitcoin users. Personally, I consider it most likely that the split will be negligible and that you won't have to do anything, but it's still a good idea to prepare just in case.

A very short summary of what you need to do:

1. Ensure that you have no BTC deposited with a Bitcoin bank or other trusted third-party before Aug 1. If there's no technical way for you to export the private keys for your BTC, then that BTC is at risk. Some Bitcoin banks may assure you that they'll definitely keep your BTC safe, but I absolutely wouldn't trust them.2. Do not send transactions or trust received transactions starting 12 hours before Aug 1 at midnight UTC, and continue this until you hear the "all clear" from several trustworthy sources. For example, I will post a forum news item if everything is OK, or if everything is not OK and action is required.

This is turning out to be a real dampener. All these days, I was checking the SegWit2x support levels. It was hovering at around 86% for the past 2-3 weeks, and I was finally hoping that the scaling problems will be solved for ever. Seems like the issue is going to get even worse.

It's very annoying, but there's no reason to get depressed about it. BIP148 will fail because it was poorly-designed. BIP149 is similar, but well-designed (and therefore slower): it'll finally get the job done in about a year, and the sky won't fall between now and then.

One might be able to argue that it would be best to not send (and avoid receiving, if possible) any bitcoin immidiately prior to (in order to avoid issues resulting from confirmation delays), and after a split up until it is very clear which "side" of the split is going to succeed.

That's what I do recommend in the guide...

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If in doubt, avoid sending transactions or trusting received transactions 12 hours before and up to a few days after the split time, and check the forum for more news. If a major split happens, I will very likely make a post and news item explaining how to handle the situation. Coins at rest are not at risk.

In the unlikely event that there are are insufficient miners or attacks by miners on an economically-strong currency, it won't be too difficult to fix this with a hardfork (manual difficulty adjustment or PoW change). If Bitcoin is already unusable/unstable/insecure, then there's no additional harm in doing an immediate hardfork. We're not just going live with 1% confirmation speed for several months or whatever.

My post-split instructions will provide guidance for any such ongoing or plausible-future difficulties.

Even if the hardfork fails. The Segwit part of Segwit2x will most likely get activated.

I very much doubt it. That requires 80% miner support, but BitMain has much more than 20%, and they'll never willingly cause SegWit to activate because it destroys asicboost. The current signalling percentages are a result of BitMain trying to get people to think as you do, in order to hurt BIP148's chances. (I think that BIP148 was doomed regardless, but it doesn't help when people are thinking that "segwit2x" will activate SegWit around the same time anyway.)

Although it is very undesirable, it is possible for Bitcoin to split into two non-negligible separate currencies.

Why is this possible? / What causes a split?

There is no actual BTC in your Bitcoin wallet: there are only private keys which are used to unlock and then transfer ownership of BTC stored in the Bitcoin system. BTC never actually leaves the Bitcoin system. A split creates a clone of the original cryptocurrency, but with modifications preventing the two cryptocurrencies from actually being the same; after the split, you cannot send coins from one side of the split to the other. After the split, your private key can be used to unlock your coins on both the original system and the modified system.

It's like if someone got their hands on a copy of the google.com database and created super-google.com starting with the google.com database but with different features. You could use the same login credentials to login at either google.com or super-google.com. But after the clone was created, if you received mail.google.com email, it would not show up at mail.super-google.com, and vice-versa. Similarly, you can use the same private key to spend money on the original currency or the modified currency, but after the split they diverge.

Anyone can create a split. It only requires a few lines of code changes. But splits only matter if people of economic significance actually use the split (ie. they must run the modified software).

Splits happen in the following situations:

- In a contentious hardfork. - In a user-activated softfork (UASF) which lacks both majority mining power at the time of activation and near-unanimous support from the economy. If it has one or the other, then a split does not result. - In a BIP9-style miner-triggered softfork where a very large number of miners are lying about their enforcement of the softfork. (Unlikely.)

What happens to my bitcoins in a split?

It's similar to a stock spin-off. You have x BTC beforehand, and afterward you have both x BTC and x "BTC-X". But very importantly, your wallet will not magically know that it is now able to unlock both currencies. If your wallet is not updated to account for the split, then you will only be able to spend one of the currencies, probably the more "status-quo" one. Another possibility is that your wallet could be updated, but only to support a different currency than it would've otherwise, not to support both. It is not unreasonable for wallets to support only one currency, since they really weren't originally designed/intended to support multiple. But if your wallet only supports one of the currencies, then you will usually end up throwing away some or all of the other currency when you next send coins after the split, as a side-effect of the transaction -- this is called "replay".

Value is unpredictable. Like a stock split or spin-off, you'd vaguely expect the value of BTC immediately before the split to equal the sum of the values of "BTC" and "BTC-X" immediately after the split. But if a split like this is anything close to a 50-50 split (in relation to economic adoption/value, not node or miner adoption), then the whole thing will probably be unbelievably, catastrophically messy, which may result in the combined value crashing. On the other hand, if the minority currency is pretty small and things don't get too messy, the minority side could be speculatively overvalued (similar to altcoins) without affecting the majority side too much, causing the combined value to rise somewhat.

Which side of the split is the real Bitcoin?

That depends on a wide variety of factors, and to some degree it is subjective. The most important factor is which currency people/businesses/exchanges accept: if for example one currency is accepted by 95% of the pre-split economy, and the other is accepted by only 5% of the pre-split economy, then the 95% one is probably truly Bitcoin, and the other one can be considered a Bitcoin-derived altcoin. Note that mining power has very little influence here.

Some might say that both currencies post-split are valid incarnations of Bitcoin, but it is my philosophy that only one Bitcoin can exist at any one time; any uncertainty is only a temporary feature, and at least in hindsight there will be a single unbroken path from Satoshi's original Bitcoin to the current one.

What should I do to secure my bitcoins?

First of all, remove all bitcoins possible from banks/exchanges/"hosted wallets". If you can't export your private keys, then you don't actually control the bitcoins. This is a good idea in general, but it's especially important in case of splits. If you're using a Bitcoin bank, then you will have no control over what happens to your coins. Quite possibly, the bank will end up stealing/losing one of the currencies that you should have access to, either through greed/malice or technical incompetence, and the currency they throw away might well be the only one that ends up having any long-term value.

Possible splits are usually predictable some time in advance (see the next section). If in doubt, avoid sending transactions or trusting received transactions 12 hours before and up to a few days after the split time, and check the forum for more news. If a major split happens, I will very likely make a post and news item explaining how to handle the situation. Coins at rest are not at risk.

Generally, after a split:

- If you want to completely ignore (ie. discard) one of the currencies, and your wallet is already set up to ignore that currency, then you don't have to do anything. - If you want to completely ignore (ie. discard) one of the currencies, and your wallet is set up to support only that currency, then you might be able to change the software's settings after the split, or you might have to switch to different wallet software. - If you want to use both currencies at the same time or sell one of the currencies, then you will probably have to follow a somewhat-complicated series of steps possibly involving running some extra software in order to cleanly split your coins and eliminate the possibility of replay.

Note that in the Bcash split on Aug 1, 2017, it was relatively easy to split coins, and the above risks mostly did not apply. This is because Bcash had a feature called replay protection. It is possible for a split to lack this feature, in which case the above more stringent measures are necessary.

About the near future / "SegWit2X"

SegWit is already locked-in in Bitcoin. There is zero doubt that Bitcoin will support SegWit. With SegWit, the max block size will be roughly 4MB.

"SegWit2x", also known by the abbreviation B2X, is a potential split proposal. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with SegWit. It doubles the max block size (under SegWit) from 4MB to 8MB. If its supporters go forward with it, B2X would definitely cause a split. As mentioned previously, if you have x BTC before the split, you'll be technically able to claim x B2X as well after a split. However, B2X lacks replay protection, so it will be more difficult to safely acquire your B2X than it was to acquire your BCH in the Bcash split.

The next time when a split is predicted to possibly happen is block 494,784, sometime in November, which is the fork time currently planned by B2X supporters.

OK wallets

The following wallets give you some theoretical way of exporting your private keys, so they should be safe to hold BTC during any split. Depending on what happens after a split, you may have to export your private keys and use different software, though. (Do not go doing this willy-nilly in a panic, though -- wait for agreement and clear instructions from several sources. There will be no rush.)

The ones in bold are ones that I also tend to like for other reasons. The ones in italic seem to make it difficult to export your private keys, or I particularly dislike them for other reasons.

I think that BIP148 will most likely fail (ie. ~everyone will abandon it right away). And the "segwit2x" hardfork is 100x less likely to succeed than even that. So I see a continuation of the status quo for at least 6 months, probably 9-14 months.

The market might crash somewhat before Aug 1 ("OMG the sky is going to fall") or somewhat after Aug 1 ("OMG Bitcoin's technological advancement is seriously stalled"), but IMO it'll return to the longer-term trend after a while.

so there would be two balances of old and new bitcoin with the same value? Would there be some difference with their usage or since if there we re to be two balances, would that mean that the price will go down? I'm not quite sure about this whole split situation.

I don't have many informations about this event but should someone holding an amount inside an exchanges or an online wallet, transfers it to a cold storage? Or both storage are the same regarding the fork?

Out of curiosity, what was the basis for excluding the votes? People who do not participate in that thread were excluded or was something else used?

Empowering has 4 more participant votes, including 2 more high-rank participant votes.

It was closer for third place: Compared to lightfoot, you have 1 more high-rank participant vote but the same number of total participant votes. At this stage, I considered it a tie which I broke by looking at non-participants.

empoweringmarcus_of_augustusEALarklanyefikuriousxyzzy099infofrontcrazyjackBlindMayorBitcornsilverfuturebones261DottospiderbrainsoullyGfluidjaxLast of the V8sFractalUniversecgt99bitserveScofield(Quickseller)(DarkStar_)(Jemzx00)

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Ads are allowed to contain any non-annoying HTML/CSS style. No images, JavaScript, or animation. Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 900px wide). Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Nine of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post, and only for people using the default theme.

Duration

- Your ads are guaranteed to be up for at least 7 days.- I usually try to keep ads up for no more than 8 or 9 days.- Sometimes ads might be up for longer, but hopefully no longer than 12 days. Even if past rounds sometimes lasted for long periods of time, you should not rely on this for your ads.

Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads. I don't expect many people to use this option. These people don't increase the impression stats for your ads.

I try to bypass Adblock Plus filters as much as possible, though this is not guaranteed. It is difficult or impossible for ABP filters to block the ad space itself without blocking posts. However, filters can match against the URLs in your links, your CSS classes and style attributes, and the HTML structure of your ads.

To prevent matches against URLs: I have some JavaScript which fixes links blocked by ABP. You must tell me if you want this for your ads. When someone with ABP and JavaScript enabled views your ads, your links are changed to a special randomized bitcointalk.org URL which redirects to your site when visited. People without ABP are unaffected, even if they don't have JavaScript enabled. The downsides are:- ABP users will see the redirection link when they hover over the link, even if they disable ABP for the forum.- Getting referral stats might become even more difficult.- Some users might get a warning when redirecting from https to http.

To prevent matching on CSS classes/styles: Don't use inline CSS. I can give your ad a CSS class that is randomized on each pageload, but you must request this.

To prevent matching against your HTML structure: Use only one <a> and no other tags if possible. If your ads get blocked because of matching done on something inside of your ad, you are responsible for noticing this and giving me new ad HTML.

Images are not allowed no matter how they are created (CSS, SVG, or data URI). Occasionally I will make an exception for small logos and such, but you must get pre-approval from me first.

The maximum size of any one ad is 51200 bytes.

I will send you more detailed styling rules if you win slots in this auction (or upon request).

Auction rules

You must be at least a Jr Member to bid. If you are not a Jr Member and you really want to bid, you should PM me first. Tell me in the PM what you're going to advertise. You might be required to pay some amount in advance. Everyone else: Please quickly PM newbies who try to bid here to warn them against impersonation scammers.

If you have never purchased forum ad space before, and it is not blatantly obvious what you're going to advertise, say what you're going to advertise in your first bid, or tell me in a PM.

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the maximum number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all nine slots are filled.

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however.- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.05.- The bidding starts at 0.1.- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time. Unless I say otherwise, I typically try to end auctions within a few days of 10 days from the time of this post, but unexpected circumstances may sometimes force me to end the auction anytime between 4 and 22 days from the start.- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.- Bids are considered invalid and will be ignored if they do not specify both a price and a max quantity, or if they could not possibly win any slots

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

The contextual search in the upper right searches the board you're on and all subboards. If this results in more than 5 boards, but less than all boards, then you get that error (recently-added for performance reasons).

If you want to search the entire forum, you can go to the search page or to the front page. The limitation I added is that you can either search all boards, or limit it to 1-5 boards. But you can't limit it to 10 boards, for example.

How would you handle a situation with a large number of new accounts voting? The decision to consider 'who' voted is a step in the right direction, but I'm wondering how you would execute it if someone were to be leading by a large margin with e.g. such votes.

I'll ignore apparent vote-stuffing completely.

Probably I'll be able to tell the proper ordering by just skimming the color-coded voter list. In edge cases, I might devise some sort of point system.

I will declare a poll winner by considering who voted what, not just by counting votes.

Polls on forum administration are always advisory, but in this case I don't care very much who owns the thread, so I don't see any reason why I wouldn't put the winner of this poll in charge of the thread. Though if the thread becomes problematic again, the thread owner will have to be replaced.

arklan - "if mods are needed, i have the time to do it"Erkallys- "I candidate if this is needed. At least I have no hatred toward me as well as any fanboy." - "I would not be too strict on moderation, and I am available all day long."

infofront- "I'm not a prolific poster, or well known personality, but I'd volunteer to help moderate. I started the "unmoderated" wall observer thread because I believe in the laissez-faire nature of Adam's thread."

Lauda - "I could create one, and would if someone were to get something like ChartBuddy running again." <-- from another thread but related to this one.

empowering - "I probably have the necessary erratic mental health condition..." "...So I guess I will throw my hat in - happy to do it, not fussed either though."